


Change on the Rise

by Entropic_Wren



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Feels, Gen, Original Characters - Freeform, Sydney Shatterdome, This will be a trip, follows the events of Scissure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-24 08:41:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30069636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Entropic_Wren/pseuds/Entropic_Wren
Summary: On September 2nd, 2014 a Kaiju reached landfall in Sydney.The fourth attack the world had seen, and it reaffirmed that this was to be the new normal. A new normal they had perhaps not been prepared for. Percival certainly wasn't. Airforce pilot turned station commander, it felt like for the entire event he was grasping straws.Little did he know his career was going to take a turn following, and those straws were going to become much more significant.
Kudos: 2





	Change on the Rise

**Author's Note:**

> Surprise...? Yet another series.
> 
> I decided after having done a fair few posts of 'Sydney Shatterdome Shennanigans' I wanted to write a story to explores Perc's life, even just a tad (this is despite me knowing I have already two stories in the work...).

Percival Moses had seen a lot of things growing up… he had done many things as well.

He had been five and in hospital after ambitiously climbing a tree and paying the price of that ambition. He had seen the hospital go from quiet to becoming busy in a matter of minutes, filled with quick chatter and flustered haste. It took several rounds of snooping into conversations for Perc to find the answer which lied in a cyclone.

Couple of years later and he was less inclined as a child for travelling in trains from what he heard happened… the biggest cranes were called in that day to clean up.

He had lived through several rounds of angry red skies and billowing smoke… it certainly meant there was a reducing amount of things that could phase him.

Especially when paired with the twenty years of service as a fighter pilot Perc had accumulated in the Middle East… he wasn’t sure if he was proud of that chapter… the lines were blurred for far too long on that front.

But right now they were in vivid technicolour. Perc was watching as choices played out.

A fourth monster had come out of nowhere and had chosen Sydney as it’s destination… And for a good while, Perc had watched over a screen, standing in a temporary base inside on the Naval bases, as they argued.

What was the best course of action? How do you minimise the damage to the city? They had hoped they could nuke it before it made landfall…

…All the while Perc found himself talking to several officers of the other branches to figure out how would you evacuate an entire area as densely populated as Sydney has quickly and humanely possible.

The answer was you couldn’t… it was a logistical nightmare. You called out all the buses that could reach, pulled out of the trucks and jeeps the militaries had that could also reach and there wouldn’t be enough.

You offload many onto trains and they became crowded in literal minutes. Buses offloaded for other buses that were on the move closer to collect and take the people to clear out of the area. It made it vividly clear they were still so hopelessly unprepared. Whether that was because of dumb foolishness that hoped it wouldn't happen to them, or they just didn't have enough time Percival didn't know.

Several phone calls and internal screams of ‘am I even qualified for this’ leads to one-way traffic and transport being declared. Hanging off a wing and a prayer Percival worked how to make this system work as much as it possibly could. All the while the time that those bombs had given was gradually diminishing.

It all stopped however when Perc could hear the roar from the headlands, the ball of dread forming as his orders were changed. The reminder that his role as group commander in charge of a station meant he had to carry out some of the more painful decisions…

He had to carry out the order for the jets to be scrambled… a tiny voice in his head screaming that he should have been there. But instead, he was on the ground… wings long since clipped less from his age but more from ‘rewards’ and ‘congratulations’ for his service.

For the next three days Perc had one eye on what evacuations they could risk continuing (it wasn’t even remotely enough), and another on his squadrons, gritting his teeth each time to battle turned against them.

Sleep was something he did not come by, chasing it away with cups of coffee and a constant level of stress.

...Three days and he didn’t even dare to imagine the loss of how many lives were lost for the beast to be lured to Garigal National Park… It was only there with the dropping off a bomb that it stopped it.

But in the process… that meant they dropped a bomb on North Sydney. And that made the combat veteran’s stomach twist in knots… he never thought he’d live in a time were a country would be forced to drop of a bomb on their own country… but he had seen it more than once now. It had just been Australia’s turn this time.

Over the next few days the news started to slowly patter down, letting out a resounding echo as each one hitting the metal defences that was Percival’s mind.

The damage.

The casualties.

The deaths…

…some of them being people he knew…

…Some of those he ordered to this deaths…

…A friend… A dear close friend too.

While he was getting a commendation for his efforts he was mourning. When he was attending events following Scissure, the next he was attending a funeral. All in all he had worn his darn dress blues way too many times.

He craved to just slip into the shadows and far away from the cameras. He was not a man of show and pompous but following it all he became was the horse with the shiniest coat to the higher ups.

And even more tiringly; it meant he couldn’t go to some events without being gawked at.

He supposed the tables were turned now as he gazed at someone in the crowd of people in the funeral. A painfully familiar person, who Perc thought after literal decades he wouldn’t be so weak for still.

Time certainly seemed to be more kinder to Nancy than it ever had been for him. The signs of grey seemed to compliment her more than it ever had for him, it helped shape the braid she always seemed to wear her hair in… French? Dutch? It had been too many decades to remember for sure which it was...

It semi surprised him to see Alvin near her… he told him so many years ago they had broken up eventually. His pilot lifestyle and her base-doctor lifestyle just seemed to never match up… If Perc had been a bolder 30 year old he would have made his move…

But he hesitated. He didn’t think it would be fair to subject either Nancy and Alvin to new-found knowledge…

With a shake of his head and a glance back to the front Percival tried to focus back onto the service, guilt in two forms slowly chewing on him as he sat in one of the pews towards the back. Though he had to note… Harold probably was laughing at him from beyond the grave at how his lost love life decided to make a comeback at his funeral.

But that guilt… It got bad enough that when he was standing he felt too light like his legs would wobble and give out from under him at any time. But somehow they didn’t.

Somehow Perc was able to follow the possession out, fixing his air-force cap once outside, and cringing at the flashes the seemed to go into overdrive now the funeral was over. The burial of a seasoned air-force pilot who fought the kaiju and came off second best certainly was something the press seemed to like to latch on to.

There was a small sigh of relief though when the press had not been allowed access to the burial grounds. Contradicted as Alvin and Nancy had sighed him and moved over.

The three of them remained quiet, watching as the man who made up one part of Perc’s and Alvin’s old squadron was buried.

There was a few hands on arms, shared glances and nods. A moment of nostalgia and weak chuckles before the three had to resign to their lives taking them in separate directions once more. The two made Percival promise to not be a stranger.

It took a few joking jabs before Perc caved with a small chuckle, hugging Alvin once more and, in a shocking sense of boldness by his standards, kissed Nancy on the cheek as he reassured them he would.

With that all said and done though, Percival Moses left the cemetery alone. Wondering to himself what life was going to be like now… after everything that had happened, there was no way life was staying normal.


End file.
